Day 382

Nice hat!

January 15th, 2013



This telephone building is sporting some stylish headgear.


2 Comments

  1. tom says:

    what in the blue heck is that?

  2. Steve says:

    That’s for cooling the temperature & humidity sensitive (and heat generating) digital telephone call switching equipment which was installed in the late 80’s. When this building was new the switching equipmemt would have been electromechanical equipment (30’s onward) which was noisy but cool. It could tolerate changes in temp. The windows were for the employees.
    The equipment had a very low density and so was built vertical. Much of the maintenance was done on rolling ladders. This would have been New York Telephone, part of the AT&T monopoly.
    A telephone company building with low ceilings was either built pre-mechanical (operators) or was built late-60’s and onward (electronic switching).
    (I’m an employee and have been inside most of these).
    A crossbar 1 switch. Last ones take out of service in NYC around 1990!:
    http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/images/thumb/2/27/-1_Crossbar_NY_May_1938.jpg/180px–1_Crossbar_NY_May_1938.jpg

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